Friday, 1 October 2010

Thomas Derrick, Jack Robinson and Dr Guillotin

Once upon a time, hanging was the punishment for almost any crime. Even Ben Jonson, for the trivial offence of murder, was sentenced to death. The sentence was commuted when he proved that he could read and thus got Benefit of the Clergy. He had a T branded on his thumb and was sent home with a warning.

The T stood for Tyburn, which is where the hangings used to take place. The man who would have executed Ben Jonson was called Thomas Derrick. Thomas Derrick was a nasty man. There hadn't been enough applicants for the role of executioner and so the Earl of Essex pardoned a rapist on condition that he would take on the job. That rapist was Derrick.

Modern recruitment companies could learn a thing or two from the Earl of Essex.

Which isn't to say that Derrick was technically bad. In fact, he was something of an innovator. Rather than just slinging the rope over the beam, he invented a complicated system of ropes and pulleys, and it was by this method that he, in 1601, executed the Earl of Essex.

There's a moral in that, but I haven't the foggiest notion what it is and this is an counterethical post because Derrick's name survives. The rope system he invented started to be used for loading and unloading goods at the dock and that is why modern cranes still have a derrick.

There are three main theories on why things happen before you can say Jack Robinson. The first is that Robinson used to be the French term for an umbrella (because of Robinson Crusoe), and that French servants were usually called Jaques. This meant that when rich Frenchmen visited England and were surprised by the inevitable rain they would shout "Jaques, robinson."

The second theory is that there was an eccentric fellow in early nineteenth century London who would walk out of parties without warning, often before you could even say his name, which was Jack Robinson. However, there is no contemporary evidence for his existence.

The third and most plausible theory is that it comes from Sir John Robinson who was constable of the Tower of London from 1660 to 1679. He was therefore in charge of executions and was a stickler for efficiency rather than solemnity. The prisoner was marched out, put on the block and shortened without any opportunity for famous last words. He did not even have the time to appeal to the overseer by crying 'Jack Robinson.'

So derricks and brief spans of time are both named after cruel and psychotic executioners. The guillotine, on the other hand, is named after a jolly nice chap.

Dr Joseph-Ignace Guillotin had nothing whatsoever to do with the invention of the Guillotine. In fact, so far as anybody can tell, he was against the death penalty. Nobody's sure who designed the first modern guillotine, but it was built by a German harpsichord-maker called Tobias Schmidt.

It was Guillotin's kindness that got the machine named after him. You see, in pre-revolution France poor people were hanged, whereas nobles had to the right to be executed, which was considered less painful (although I'm not sure how they worked that out). When the poor French were revolting, one of the key demands was the right to be beheaded. Dr Guillotin was on the committee for reforming executions. He decided that the mechanism with the blade was the least painful and most humane method available. He recommended it.

In the debate that followed, on the first of December 1789, he made one silly remark: "Avec ma machine, je vous fais sauter la tete d'un coup-doeil, et vous ne souffrez point." With my machine, I cut off your head in the twinkling of an eye, and you never feel it.

It's a great line. People loved it. They composed a comic song about it. Here's an English translation:

'Twas thought, and not in vain, That this slim Hippocrates limbWas jealous to obtainThe exclusive right of killingBy quicker means than pilling.

The patriot keen, Guillotin,The best advice to have Before the next debate Consults Coupe-teteChapetier and Barnave; And then off-hand His genius planned That machineThat 'simply' kills - that's all -Which after him we call 'Guillotin.'

So Thomas Derrick and Jack Robinson were both sadistic, heartless thugs, whose names live on in innocence, if not glory. Poor Dr Guillotin's family were so embarrassed that they had to change their name.

There is, as the fellow remarked in the empty magistrates court, no justice.

Err...sorry to be a pedant, but Derrick didn't use his derrick to execute the Earl of Essex. An a noble and a traitor, Essex had the right to have his head chopped off, and Derrick made a complete hash of the job. It took him three strikes before he was able to wave the head about to a great cry of 'God Save the Queen'.Dr Guilloutin's machine was designed to avoid this sort of messy and, frankly, barbaric spectacle.

And while I'm about it, the derrick in your photo is an oil derrick and not like Derrick's derrick at all. His invention had a post with a spar hinged at the bottom. The top end of the spar was held in place by a rope running through a pulley on the top of the post, so you could hoist a malefactor off the ground quickly and easily. Dockers using derricks to unload ships would bring the spar to the centre of the hold by hanging a weight on the hook at the end of the rope - which was called a 'deadman' (http://myweb.tiscali.co.uk/gansg/9-loads/deadman.jpg).

My favourite book of this and possibly any other Christmas is Mark Forsyth's A Short History of Drunkenness - The Spectator

Sparkling, erudite and laugh out loud funny. Mark Forsyth is the kind of guide that drunks, teetotallers and light drinkers dream of to explain the ins and outs of alcohol use and abuse since the beginning of time. One of my books of the year. Immensely enjoyable. Professor Peter Frankopan, author of The Silk Roads

A Short History of Drunkenness is this year's Châteauneuf-du-Pape of Christmas books, no less. Bloody entertaining. - Emlyn Rees

Sometimes you see a book title that simply gladdens the heart. Everyone I showed this book to either smiled broadly or laughed out loud . . . This is a book of some brilliance - Daily Mail

With a great eye for a story and a counterintuitive argument, Mark Forsyth has enormous fun breezing through 10,000 years of alcoholic history in a little more than 250 pages. - The Guardian

Well researched and recounted with excellent humour, Forsyth's alcohol-ridden tale is sure to reduce anyone to a stupor of amazement. - Daily Express

This entertaining study of drunkenness makes for a racy sprint through human history - history being, as Mark Forsyth wittily puts it "the result of farmers working too hard". - The Sunday Times

This charming book proved so engrossing that while reading it I accidentally drank two bottles of wine without realising. - Rob Temple, author of Very British Problems